Aaron Judge has already had himself a historically great career. At age 33 he’s already tied for third-best offensive production in Major League Baseball history, behind only Babe Ruth and Ted Williams through that age. This season he’s pacing for another 50+ home-run campaign and commanding MVP caliber stats. In short, Judge has raised the bar even higher than when he won MVP awards in 2022 and 2024, to the point where fans, players and historians alike agree that we’re watching one of the best to ever play this game.
Judge’s advanced metrics underscore his extraordinary contact and power. MLB’s Statcast shows him averaging around 95–96 mph exit velocity and barreling about 25% of balls in play. Those rates are comparable to (or better than) Barry Bonds and other all-timers. His 56.9% hard-hit rate is off the charts, and his expected wOBA (xwOBA) is roughly .495. In other words, every swing Judge takes is overwhelmingly likely to result in extra-base damage or an on-base event. Even balls that he hits on the ground find a hole past an infielder because they simply don’t have enough time to react.
Those numbers explain his gargantuan slash line (recently .396/.488/.743) and 1.231 OPS. He’s combining contact and lift perfectly, hitting a whopping 25% of batted balls as barrels. In the analysts’ eyes he’s already joined baseball royalty: if he keeps playing at this clip the projections say he’ll notch three seasons more than twice as good as an average hitter, a club that previously included only Ruth, Bonds, Williams and Rogers Hornsby. He isn’t just mimicking the legends; in some metrics he’s already ahead of them for their age. Not to mention that Judge is doing this without performance enhancing drugs, in an era where opposing pitchers are throwing harder than ever before and with more spin.
All this offensive excellence puts Judge squarely in the Triple Crown conversation. He enters Mother’s Day leading the AL in batting average, homers and RBIs. Such dominance in all three categories is almost unheard-of in the modern game. The last hitter to achieve the feat was Miguel Cabrera in 2012, becoming the first MLB player to do so in 45 years. Even more telling: Judge also leads MLB in WAR, which encapsulates his total value (offense, defense, baserunning). In other words, he isn’t just piling up counting stats; he’s statistically the single most valuable player in the game this year, by far.
Remarkably, Judge’s contributions extend far beyond his bat. At 6-foot-7 with a cannon arm, he has become a defensive stalwart in right field. His plays in the outfield – flashing range on deep drives and making precise, powerful throws that remind everyone he’s no mere slugger. While traditional stats don’t capture it fully, Statcast’s range metrics rate him among the game’s top outfielders, and his thrown-out-steal rate has been spectacular.
After being named the 16th Yankees’ captain in December of 2022, Judge took on an even larger role as a leader. His teammates describe him as a consummate professional who sets the tone every day. Judge even won MLB’s Roberto Clemente Award in 2023 for his exemplary character and community work with his All-Rise Foundation. The result is a clubhouse charged with Judge’s energy and focus.
In short, Aaron Judge in 2025 has transcended being “just a slugger.” He blends video-game power with batting skill, plus legitimate outfield defense and the mindset of a captain, to become baseball’s most complete player. His near-mythic start, matching or setting records already, has utterly upended the expectations of even the most optimistic Yankees fans. With each stadium thunderstruck by a mammoth flyball or a dazzling catch, Judge looks more like the apex predator of the lineup. Whether or not he ultimately claims the Triple Crown, he has already delivered a season of total dominance. By year’s end, even casual observers may agree with the sentiment that we are witnessing one of the best to ever do it.
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